An admin day mainly.
Had lunch with Pauline in Napier, blue sky and a very strong sun.
After dinner we had Hokey Pokey ice creams at Ahuriri You can laugh at the name but they are delicious. Then we went to Max’s for a coffee.
Max had been sent a DVD of The Spitfire: Britain’s Flying Past so we played it.
Noel and I saw it when it was on TV in the UK but Max hadn’t seen it. It was a brilliant programme for ‘small world’ syndrome!
1. It was White Waltham airfield’s own Paul Bonhomme flying the Spitfire chosen to be followed in the programme.
2. The Spitfire was based with 222 Sqn, which was based alongside Max’s 485 Sqn and Max will have flown with it.
3. The presenter John Sergeant, flew in Carolyn Grace’s Spitfire with her son Richard as the pilot and this Spitfire OU-V was in the same squadron as Max’s Spitfire OU-D and Max flew alongside it.
4. Noel went up in OU-V. And I’m still not speaking to him 😉
5. It featured the story of Joe Roddis and Betty, who met during WW2, parted and met again many years later. Joe Roddis was groundcrew for 485 Sqn and Max and he are friends. When the programme finished Max rang Joe up in the UK (8am UK time) and pulled his leg. 🙂
Spotted a Spitfire overhead in Tauranga this afternoon (25/1/14) and thought of you.
That will have been from the Tauranga Airshow Practice Day. We travelled up to Tauranga on the 25th and attended the airshow on the 26th with Noel’s Dad, Max Collett, a Spitfire pilot during WW2.